


nightmares are two steps from reality

by demistories



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Blood, Death, Emotional Hurt, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Gen, Gore, Injury, Major Character Injury, Nightmares, Vomiting, ok this is dark, unreality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-27
Updated: 2016-01-27
Packaged: 2018-05-16 12:55:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5829739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/demistories/pseuds/demistories
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She slips through his fingers again. </p><p>Adrien wakes up gasping for breath, reaching for someone who’s no longer there. She’s never been there. He’s just in his bedroom, not standing in the streets, not in a half destroyed building, not on a rooftop. Plagg floats up to him silently, nuzzling his cheek as he gasps, silent tears staining his cheeks. He can never catch his breath.</p>
            </blockquote>





	nightmares are two steps from reality

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Cinnamonbookworm](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cinnamonbookworm/gifts), [zoenightstars on tumblr](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=zoenightstars+on+tumblr), [humanagain](https://archiveofourown.org/users/humanagain/gifts).



> Sim and I are having an angst war, and this is a mistake. Thank you to [Maya](http://zoenightstars.tumblr.com) for doing a little beta-ing, helping me with warnings, and talking to me about sad Adrien things. 
> 
> You know how Chat thought Ladybug died?
> 
>  **WARNINGS:** blood, injury, gore, unreality, vomit, death, suicide implications, nightmares, and panic attacks. Please, _please_ be careful if necessary, and as usual, if I'm missing any warnings do let me know.

She slips through his fingers again.

Adrien wakes up gasping for breath, reaching for someone who’s no longer there. She’s never been there. He’s just in his bedroom, not standing in the streets, not in a half destroyed building, not on a rooftop. Plagg floats up to him silently, nuzzling his cheek as he gasps, silent tears staining his cheeks. He can never catch his breath.

He used to dream about his mother. He’d see her turn away from him. Over and over and over again. She kept fading away, vanishing into mist, disappearing behind moving cars. He’d wake up reaching for her, a scream for “mom!” on the very tip of tongue, just about to leave his lips.

Adrien doesn’t reach for his mother anymore.

He wishes he did. He wishes he was still dreaming of her leaving. He wishes her nonexistent words still echoed in his mind. “If you do better, maybe I’ll come back.” She never said that, not to his face, but the words had haunted him. The words are different now.

_“Why couldn’t you save me.”_

There’s blood on his hands. So much blood. He can’t stop it, he’s trying so hard. How does he stop it? The brighter red of her suit clashes with the dark red of her pooling blood. She reaches up, her hand soaked in blood. It drips down back on to her and runs down her arm. She brushes her fingers against his cheek, the red in stark contrast with his mask.

_“You were supposed to protect me, Chat. Why didn’t you protect me.”_

_“You failed.”_

_“You were my armor.”_

_“Chat Noir is the armor.”_

_“Why didn’t you do what you had to.”_

“ _Why couldn’t you save me._ ”

❧ ☙

Adrien wakes up choking on a scream.

Nathalie won’t come in to check on him. His father won’t come check on him. Plagg lands on his shoulder and presses into his neck.

_Why didn’t he grab her?_

He gets out of bed and goes to the bathroom. He stands over the sink, scrubbing his hands hard. He needs to wash the blood out. Why are his hands so red.

_Out, damn’d spot! Out, I say!_

He scrubs harder. This isn’t a tragedy. Not yet. He can still save her. He has to save her.

❧ ☙

Adrien wakes up screaming. His voice is hoarse and his tears are hot and salty. Plagg nestles in his hair as he sobs, his body shaking. His mouth tastes metallic.

The way her broken body had felt in his arms. The warm, slick blood that made her slip as he tried to pull her close. Her shuddering breaths. Her last. The light had faded from her eyes. Her body went cold. He was still screaming for her to come back. Her last words.

_“Can you not save me even once?”_

❧ ☙

Adrien wakes up cold. His tears have frozen, his heart has frozen, his soul has frozen. Plagg hovers above him. He can’t tell if he’s breathing. He’s just empty now. He’s empty and broken. He killed her.

He can hear Hawk Moth’s voice echoing in his head. Her horror when she sees what he’s become. He kills her. He kills her. He kills her, and it’s not until she’s gone and he’s trying to get her earrings and he touches her blood that he realizes that _he killed her_.

He killed her.

Everything comes rushing back. All of the pain, the heat, the tears, and the strangled screaming. Everything that Hawkmoth had repressed. He stumbles to the bathroom, tripping over nothing. He leans over the toilet until everything is gone. The bile and the tears and the sobs and the _pain_.

Plagg sits on the counter. He doesn’t say anything. Neither of them do.

Adrien longs for the nights when his worst nightmares were of his mother’s face turning away and melting away in a fog.

He doesn’t go to school. He can’t get out of bed. Once he got back in, he couldn’t move. His actions play on loop in his mind.

_“How could you.”_

_“Chat Noir, how could you.”_

_“You’re killing me.”_

_“You killed me.”_

He curls up in a ball and doesn’t move. If he never feels, Hawkmoth can never get to him.

❧ ☙

Adrien wakes up. He wakes up at stares at the wall in front of him. Plagg wakes up, but doesn’t move.

She was gone. Just gone.

He’d met her kwami. She’d died. As a civilian. She was gone. And he hadn’t even been there for her last breath. He knew what her last words had to have been.

_“Why aren’t you here.”_

_“Why didn’t you save me.”_

❧ ☙

Adrien doesn’t wake up. Adrien doesn’t wake up, because he doesn’t sleep.

Plagg doesn’t try to convince him to. It’d be a lost cause. He downs caffeinated drinks and forces himself through school and life. He fakes a smile for the camera, and refuses to tell Nino what’s wrong. If no one is close, no one can get hurt.

If Ladybug has noticed a change in his behavior on patrols, she hasn’t said anything. That’s probably for the best. He knows he can’t handle the conversation.

It’s only a matter of time before he falls asleep.

❧ ☙

Adrien wakes up with a jerk. The air has been forced out of him, like he's landed on his back. Plagg isn’t there. He’s not in his room.

Nino asks if he’s okay, Alya gives him a worried look. Lunch. Right. The four of them are out at lunch. Marinette puts a hand on his shoulder.

Blue eyes are too much right now.

He shakes her off and goes to the bathroom. He splashes water on his face. She’d fallen. She’d fallen and he was so close to catching her, their hands missed by centimeters. His shoulder had dislocated. She had hit the pavement. He can hear the sickening sound.

_“Are you even trying?”_

❧ ☙

Adrien can’t wake up. He’s fighting to, he can just see the edges of the dream where it’s frayed, but he can’t. He’s banging against the glass wall of his mind and he _can’t get out_.

She’s dying. She’s bleeding out. This isn’t something either of them would ever be able to fix, not something done by normal humans.

_“You can’t even protect me from normal people.”_

He doesn’t want any more of her blood on his hands. Why can’t he get out?

_“How are you supposed to save Paris?”_

How can he end this dream? He needs to end this dream.

_“How are you supposed to save me?”_

How do he escape from his own mind?

_“You’ll never save me.”_

Let him out. Let him out let him out _let him out._

_“You’re useless.”_

❧ ☙

He takes another hit for her.

She yells at him until her throat is raw, tears welling up in her eyes. She hits his chest until she has no energy left, slumping against him and resting her forehead on his shoulder. “I thought I lost you.” Her words shake and tremble, as if they’re going to fall to pieces.

“You didn’t.” He’s stood on the top of the Eiffel Tower, balanced on a pole high above the city. He’s never been afraid of heights or afraid of falling. She’s always been there to catch him. But now he’s falling faster than ever, and he's going to hit the ground hard.

“Don’t leave me, Chat,” she whispers.

He can’t make that promise. He’ll do whatever he has to to save her. He has to save her.

❧ ☙

Adrien wakes up shaking. His hands are clammy and his breath is shallow. And he needs everything to _stop._ He needs the earth to stop spinning for a few seconds so he can learn how to breath again. He needs to relearn basic functions and slow the trembling of his fingers and wait until everything is back in focus.

He buries his face in his knees as Plagg cuddles up against his ankles. He’s awake. _He’s awake._ Why won’t she stop screaming.

❧ ☙

The akuma throws her. Her back hits the wall, and she falls to the ground limp. His world tunnels and shatters. His blood boils and bubbles as he turns back to the akuma, throwing himself in with complete disregard for his own safety.

He hasn’t had to defeat an akuma by himself in months. Without her Lucky Charm, there’s definitely a strain on him, but he crushes the bracelet under his boot and snatches the butterfly between his hands. He used to have a closet filled with jars of akumas. He wasn’t supposed to need them anymore.

She groans and sits up, pressing a hand to her head. He runs over to her, wishing he could release the bug and throw his arms around her. Check her head, make sure she isn’t otherwise injured, hold her, make sure she’s real.

He lasts until he sneaks back in.

He collapses against his windows, sobbing. He doesn’t notice the transformation has run out until Plagg presses against the side of his face. Once he’s gotten over the shock of the thing, he drags himself to the bathroom in time for everything to snap into place.

He almost lost her.

He throws up when the image of her hitting the wall shows up in his mind. Her slightly out of focus gaze stares up at him from the ground. She wasn’t gone yet. But how close they were. He’d seen her fall before. He’d seen her thrown and hit and bloody and drowning and burning.

They were still human.

_“Save me, Chat. Save me once.”_

❧ ☙

Adrien wakes up crying. He’s drowning in tears and blankets. Plagg sits on legs as he cries himself out, the only familiar thing left. The only thing that still feels _real_. He cries until there are no more tears left to cry.

The building collapsed. She’d still been inside. He’d gotten everyone else out, she’s told him she’d be right behind him.

His head aches and his eyes are red and swollen.

_“Why did you leave me.”_

❧ ☙

There is blood on his hands.

There is blood on his hands, on his arms, on his face, on his legs, on his suit. He’s pressing his hands into her hard, trying to stop the bleeding. There’s a hole in her side.

He can’t stop himself from crying. This is real. This isn’t supposed to be real. It’s only in his head, not real like this. Everything smells like blood.

“I’ll be fine,” she says, her grip on his wrist weak.

He chokes back a sob and shakes his head. He gathers her up in his arms while trying to keep pressure on the wound. She can’t die. He can’t let her die.

❧ ☙

Adrien wakes up and he isn't breathing. And then he is. Too quickly, too harshly. He’s lightheaded and nauseous and shaking and everything hurts. Plagg floats in front of his face, counting his breaths. In and out. In and out.

It seems like it takes hours for his breathing to even out. His head is still a mess, but it feels less like a tornado went through. Plagg watches him with worried eyes.

He’s being eaten from the inside out.

He hadn’t been fast enough. This time, she’d been the one with the purple mask. She’d slashed him down, stolen his ring with ease. Her face had crumpled. She threw it into the Seine. She tried to fight. She fought. She’d won. Only long enough for her to say,

_“You could’ve stopped this.”_

The akuma took back over. She’d pitched off the side of the building. He didn’t know who had done it, who’s actions sent her over the edge. He was on the top of a building, just Adrien, and she was gone.

Plagg pushes him towards the bathroom, instructing him to drink water. He sits on the toilet seat with a cup in his hands. His entire being aches. The smallest thing could disrupt the dangerous balance he’d found. He puts the cup on the counter and pulls his knees up to his chest. He still has to watch his breathing, he’s just a beat away from hyperventilating again.

_“Goodbye, Chat.”_

❧ ☙

 _Boundaries_ , he tells himself. But he can’t let go.

“Chat—?” She sounds unsure, confused.

He holds on tighter, telling himself just one more second. One more second. One more second…  
“Chat, what’s wrong? I told you, I’m fine. A little sore still, but fine.”

He squeezes his eyes shut and shakes his head. He’s fine too. Or he will be until he falls asleep. When he falls asleep, she flatlines. She’s gone. But that’s not now. Right now, she’s in his arms and solid and he can feel her pulse and hear her heartbeat.

“I almost lost you,” he whispers. And god, why does his voice sound so weak? Why does it break and crack and stumble in that way.

“You didn’t. I’m right here.” She’s not pushing him away. She runs her fingers through his hair, and hugging him back just as tightly.

Why isn’t she pushing away? Shouldn’t she be disgusted by his attachment to her? Shouldn’t she want to distance herself?

He can’t save her.

She needs to know that he can’t save her. He can never save her so _why doesn’t she hate him._

It comes out in a ragged sob. “I can’t save you.”

She pulls away.

There it was. He braces himself to leap to the next building.

“What are you talking about?”

He can’t meet her eyes. He’s a disappointment and he knows it. He doesn’t need to see it on her face too.

She takes his face in her hands and lifts his chin. “What do you mean?”

He means exactly what he said.

Her eyes are wide and lost and…scared? He’s never been the best at reading her, but he thought he’d been getting better. But now she’s closed off and distant and more of a mystery than usual. He drops his gaze to the freckles dotting her nose.

“Save me?” She brushes a tear off his cheek. “Chat, you don’t have to save me.”

“Yes I do,” he says quickly. “Chat Noir is nothing without Ladybug.”

She shakes her head. “Don’t be ridiculous, street cat.”

He meets her eyes for a brief second. “Chat Noir is Ladybug’s armor. It’s my job to protect you.”

“You silly cat,” she murmurs. “I protect you and you protect me. That’s how partnerships work. We work together, we’re equals.”

“I’ve seen you die.” The words are so loud. They’re ringing in his ears and shaking him to the core. His ears flatten against his head. She didn’t need to know that. He doesn’t want to be more of a burden than he already is.

She inhales sharply. “W-what?”

He pulls away from her. “Nightmares. Just nightmares. And I- I can never save you. You always… You’re—” He sinks to the ground and presses his hands into his eyes.

She’s silent and the world is spinning behind his eyelids.

Then Ladybug’s arms are tight around him. “I’m right here, Chat. I’m alive.”

❧ ☙

Adrien wakes up with a soft shake. He takes a few quick breaths and curls up on himself.

“You’re okay,” Ladybugs says softly, shaking his shoulder once more. She runs her hand over his hair. “It’s okay.”

He looks down at his hands. They’re shiny with blood. It’s not real, he reminds himself. He holds on tight to Ladybug’s arm. His shallow breathing starts to even out.

“I’m okay. We’re okay.”

He closes his eyes. Her empty eyes stare back at him in his mind, one last scream on her lips. His breath hitches, and Ladybug presses her face into his hair.

_“I guess you tried.”_

The tears are silent and hurt. But Ladybug is here. Ladybug is right here, he’s in her arms. She’s alive. Her heart is beating, her blood is pumping. He can hear her breathing.

How can dreams feel so real?

“I’m sorry,” he mumbles into her arm.

Ladybug shakes her head. “There’s nothing to be sorry for, kitty.”

He hates how her suit is red. It’s bright, but any red at all reminds him of blood. He can smell it and taste it on his lips. Her blood has been spilled too many times. In his mind. In real life.

He has to save her.

“Thank you,” Ladybug whispers.

Chat blinks. She’s pulled him out of his mind and back into the real world. Where the arms around him are real and the sky is starting to lighten. “What?”

“Thank you for saving me.”

**Author's Note:**

> You can yell at/cry to me on [tumblr](http://buglad.tumblr.com/tagged/my-fics) (and you can reblog this there)
> 
> Sorry.


End file.
